On speculation about a life in politics, perhaps as a candidate for governor of Texas: "No."

Armstrong, seven-time champion of the Tour de France and cancer survivor, spoke Friday night to 10,000 distributors of Nu Skin skin care products and nutritional supplements in conjunction with the company's annual convention at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City.

He does not endorse Nu Skin products, but spoke to company reps about motivation, setting goals and beating the odds - in Armstrong's case, a near terminal bout with testicular cancer in 1996 that rapidly spread to his abdomen, lungs and brain.

The rest of the story is legend now. Less than three years later, riding lead for U.S. Postal, the team Armstrong described as the "Bad News Bears" of cycling squads, he won his first Tour de France.

After the speech, the 34-year-old Austin, Texas, native, dressed in an open-collared white shirt and dark suit, sat on the stage with two tuxedo-clad emcees who peppered him with questions, giving the champ a chance to get chatty, casual and downright amusing.

There are three good reasons for spurning a future in politics, Armstrong said. "First, no one likes their popularity to be cut in half. Second, I don't really like people digging in my trash all the time, which is what politics is about." And third, he said, running for office would be like jumping right back into professional cycling again. A political career would take him away from his family, which is exactly what he hoped to prevent by retiring last summer on top of his game.

Next question. On how he spends his spare time: He still rides his bike, up to six hours a day. He swims with his three children. He doesn't play golf. "Anything that takes six hours a day and you're bad at it, uh, no thanks," he said.

Armstrong likes to travel, "a good thing," he said, "because I do it a lot." He has come to know President Bush rather well, and after bicycling with him a few months ago ("I smoked him bad") followed by a lunch, Armstrong felt emboldened to ask for something. Money for cancer research. And lots of it.

"I told him we need about a billion dollars. I set my own record for an ask," he said, grinning wide. "But we had a few hurricanes come along and, well . . . I asked him to double the budget of the NCI [National Cancer Institute] and that would be enough."

He's stunningly earnest about the cancer funding. With 1,500 people dying every day of cancer, he reminded the crowd "this is [the equivalent] of 9/11 every two days."

One more question. What about this retirement thing? Does he really mean it?

"I'm gonna be the cheerleader" next July when the Tour rolls around again, he said. "We're going to take me out of the equation, put someone else in and see if we can win."

And if that isn't enough to satisfy all the Lance fans out there who desperately want him to go for No. 8, take the champ's own advice:

"Just play the DVD of No. 7 again in July."

hmullen@sltrib.com